Zou Zhiming of Yihuang in Fuzhou had a family rich in goods and suddenly fell ill of a plague disease, unconscious and not knowing people. One day in a lucid interval he told his wife to invite his uncle — his uncle, that is, his father’s cousin, who was a monk in charge of the Linjiang temple and could recite the Peacock King Sutra.
When he came he said: “Set out Buddha images outside my room and recite the scripture at the bedside.” The wife did as he instructed. The monk recited two scrolls and went out to eat.
Zou looked at the place where the image was hung, and saw a peacock driving the plague demon away with its tail. When the monk finished reading the scripture and burned the memorial, he left, and it was nearly dusk.
A small ghost came to report: “We bear the Buddha’s command and must leave here, but there is a nail in the gentleman’s head that has not been pulled out. Burn plenty of underworld money for me and I will remove it for you.”
So he called his foreman Rao Shan and bought paper money wholesale, and burned it in a heap in the courtyard. The ghosts, a dozen or so in strange shapes, danced their thanks in delight, and the one who had reported first went straight up onto the bed, pulled the nail out, and said: “Tomorrow I am going to the county market, to the house of Zeng the silversmith, to spread the disease.”
Now Zou’s greatest suffering had been an unbearable pain in his head, and at that moment it suddenly cleared as though lost. At dawn he could get up, and wanting to verify the matter, he sent a man to ask at Zeng the silversmith’s house, and indeed they said he had suddenly caught a chill.
